1) Ron Paul. Ron Paul’s youth numbers pale in comparison to President Obama’s 2008 youth numbers, but they’re still awfully impressive. In Iowa, the Ron Paul team rallied 8,800 young voters to the caucuses – 48 percent of the Republican youth total. This is especially impressive given that most pundits see Paul as, at best, a long shot candidate.

2) Rick Santorum. To date, the biggest young voter story of the Republican primary is Rick Santorum’s fracas with young voters in New Hampshire over gay marriage. At an event sponsored by New England College filled with young voters, several audience members peppered Santorum with questions concerning gay marriage. His responses provoked only jeers and more questions.

“God made man and woman. Every child in the world deserves to know and be loved by their mother and father.”

“I don’t believe we can have 50 definitions of marriage. There are certain things that are essential elements to society upon which society is based.”

“It’s not discrimination not to grant privileges. It’s discrimination to deny rights.”

“So anyone can marry anybody else? So anybody can marry several people?”

In a recent RK Research (my group) study of 1,000 college students, the respondents graded the Republican Party on 25 issues. Gay marriage came in at 3.8 (on a scale of 10), dead last of the 25 issues.

Two notes on these studies: 1) These numbers mostly show the percentage of people supporting the legalization of gay marriage. I would imagine an even higher percentage of young voters oppose the type of rhetoric made by Santorum. 2) The numbers vary a bit, but they clearly show that the majority of young voters support gay marriage.

So to the extent that Republican candidates want to discuss social issues (they shouldn’t – it’s the economy stupid), they should at least choose their audience wisely. Otherwise, they will wind up activating otherwise dormant young voters… But for the wrong reasons.